Worked a year for free, basically

[Sadandstressed26]

A year ago my employer launched a voluntary severance scheme. The scheme met the number of staff it needed to.

A year later we have voluntary and potentially compulsory redundancies.

If I am made redundant, I will have worked for free, the difference between the voluntary severance and voluntary redundancy is huge. If I am not, there are lots of people in the same boat so it will apply to some.

I take take voluntary redundancy for the same reason I couldn't take voluntary severance.

I'm not sure what I'm asking for really, just want to vent.

To top it off, we haven't been informed of any restructures, but it was published on a shared company drive.

I will add, some people will be recieving a lot more via redundancy than the severance.

We were basically told the VSS was to avoid redundancies and that we'd have to go above and beyond to try to cover gaps in teams left by VSS. Which everyone has been doing. So yes it is frustrating when you have worked very hard to then be told your job is at risk, and the CR amount is £25k less than the VSS amount. The VR amount is £3k more.

The point about voluntary redundancy is that it's not redundancy. The fact that your role is no longer required by a company is not something that turns on whether you agree to it or not. Voluntary redundancy is a contradiction in terms.

If you agree to voluntary redundancy, what you are agreeing to is to end your employment on better terms than if the company made your role redundant and terminated your employment without your agreement.

E.g. of an employer offers redundancy, they are not allowed to hire someone else to do the same job, otherwise they would be open to an unfair dismissal claim.

You can bet that if a company offers you voluntary redundancy, one of the conditions is that you forgo any claim to unfair dismissal. How could you claim that, anyway? You agreed to leave.

If the OP examines the detail of the "voluntary severance" package a year ago, and the "voluntary redundancy" available now, aside from the money involved there may not be a lot of difference.

But this is entirely normal OP. Voluntary schemes pay out more than compulsory . Im sorry for your situation but your experience isn’t any different to anyone else who has to make this decision.

Yes, I understand that. The difference is 3k between VR and CR. I just didn't expect the difference between CR and VSS to be 24k, that's all I'm saying.

Well ya boo sucks. You traded that extra money for the chance of job security, the gamble didn't pay off. But you effectively paid for the chance of being kept on.

What chance? Sounds like it was never on the cards .

It's shit OP and I'd be pissed off too.

What a difference a year makes.

I would just be grateful that the whole organisation isn’t going into administration and you are left having to claim from the government scheme.

It’s happening quite a lot…

Did you do any research before you decided not to to apply for the package last year. Terms of CR are usually much worse than the voluntary schemes. CR is usually just the legal minimum.

There isn't such a thing as severance in the UK, OP, I think that's where everyone is getting confused. There's only redundancy which can either be compulsory or voluntary.

It sounds like a year ago your employer made a noise about redundancies but said they could be avoided if the company was able to find sufficient voluntary leavers. Those whose voluntary redundancy was approved got a very good financial package. Now a year later there's another round of compulsory redundancies, and although they are inviting people to take voluntary redundancy this time as well, you will only get an extra £3K if you take it whereas if you had taken it a year ago you'd have got at least £25K extra. Is that right?

Yeah! We were told the scheme would basically do all the heavy lifting. Yes things would be hard and we'd need to muck in, but we'd get through it. We weren't even allowed to acknowledge our colleagues leaving, overnight hundreds of people disappeared. Emails bounced back, phonecalls unanswered. Just gone in a puff of smoke.

Some really unpleasant posts here, sorry this is happening OP. Must be very stressful.

This is incorrect. Please just Google voluntary severance scheme and you will find numerous examples.

And you're frustrated because you feel you were assured that your job would be safe if they got enough leavers last time, and they said they had?

Clearly not enough because I genuinely believed our leadership team.

Yes, we lost the people and had to do the extra work but still now face potential redundancy.

Well exactly, she got the impression she would be safe if she stayed on, she paid for the chance of job security

Clue: no one's job is secure these days.

I don't think I do, OP. I'm not saying your company didn't call it severance, but if they were offering an enhanced package in exchange for resignations on a voluntary basis to reduce headcount for operational reasons (eg to stay financially viable, for restructuring, closing a branch, closing a department, outsourcing) and to avoid compulsory redundancies then that is a redundancy situation in UK law.

I'm trying to help people to understand what's happening here in generally understood terms so that you don't get a load of messages arguing about what it means when presumably you're very stressed and upset and don't want to argue about it, so I'll stop, but I am right. Sorry. And I am sorry that this is the reward for you sticking with the job, too, that really is poo.

Is the VR amount £3k more than the CR amount? Making it £22k less than the VSS amount, whereas the CR amount is £25k less than the VSS?

Never believe your senior leadership team and get as much money as possible at all times. You can be damn sure they themselves are doing just that.

I learnt this the hard way.

Anyway, onwards, OP. You'll get a bit of cash, not as much, but something. And, in time, a brand new job.

Fair enough, thank you. I just got frustrated as I can only call it what it was called, if you know what I mean.

I do. I stopped because I thought I was being more pedantic than helpful. The only thing I would say is that "at risk" doesn't necessarily mean "redundant". Has anyone talked to you about where you're likely to stand in this? Whether any jobs at your level remain etc?

But you being made redundant is still an ‘if’ - remember that

I completely understand though and it’s an odd feeling. I remember during Covid when we were asked who on the team would like to be put on furlough - people in our team with kids were offered it with schools and childcare being closed. I was more than happy as my petrol to and from the office literally wiped out the difference between furlough and normal pay. Essentially I considered I would have been working for a couple of hundred extra a month which was swallowed in fuel payments anyway

No, I appreciate it, thank you.

No, we haven't actually been placed at risk yet but essentially the entire organisation saved a few "out of scope" people will be. The first half has already happened and they are doing a second round. They are then moving onto us. The idea is they will make everyone at risk and accept anyone who wants vol, then rebuild with whoever is left.